Merle Dahlheimer sold the family dairy farm to purchase the St. Michael Gluek Beer Distributor in 1959. The new business came with 60,000 cases of Gluek beer, three trucks, and one cooler. Merle drove to the brewery and delivered beer on his way home. His house and garage in St. Michael, Minnesota, became a beer warehouse. He soon discovered he had a passion for providing beer distribution to the bars, taverns, and liquor stores of a growing Minnesota region. Little did he know then that the work ethic and wheels set in motion then would be the beginnings of one of the most respected beverage distribution operations in the state.

As Minnesota’s hometown breweries consolidated through the 1960s and ’70s, Merle kept the trucks rolling by adding new brands alongside Gluek. The business outgrew the St. Michael garage and moved to Albertville, where the next generation of Dahlheimers, Greg and Joe, learned the trade from the loading dock up. A partnership with Coors brought one of the country’s best-known beers to the region’s bars and liquor stores, and imports, craft beers, and non-alcoholic beverages soon followed. By the end of the century, a single-brewery route had become a true multi-brand portfolio serving customers across Wright County and beyond.

In 2006, Dahlheimer Beverage opened a new 56,000 square foot warehouse and office in Monticello to serve Central Minnesota. The building brought modern cold storage, room for a larger fleet, and space to keep growing. Over the next decade, our Monticello warehouse expanded another 60,000 sq feet, and soon, branches followed across the state. 

Brainerd serves the Lakes Area and Northern Minnesota, Green Isle covers Southern Minnesota, and Virginia serves Northeast Minnesota. Together, those four facilities now reach more than 47,000 square miles, from the Iowa border to the Canadian border.

Our partners recognize our commitment to excellence. Over the years, Dahlheimer Beverage has been honored with prestigious awards from Molson Coors, Boston Beer, the Monticello Chamber of Commerce, and others, recognizing our dedication to quality, operational excellence, and community involvement.

These honors reflect the standards we hold ourselves to every day. From the quality and care behind every product we handle to the relationships we build with our customers, suppliers, and communities, we take pride in doing things the right way. Our commitment to excellence goes beyond delivering brands. It's about being a dependable partner, investing in our communities, and continually raising the bar for what great distribution looks like.

Dahlheimer Beverage has been a member of the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) since 1976. Through the NBWA, we help give distributors a collective voice in the industry, and our leadership team has been an active part of that work. The association helps protect and shape the laws and systems that make distribution possible. For consumers, that means product selection, availability, pricing, freshness, jobs, and how alcohol is regulated. Every day, we bring our supplier partners' brands to life at retail accounts across Minnesota.

Merle Dahlheimer started the business in 1959 with three trucks and a cooler. Today his family carries it forward, led by Luke Dahlheimer as President and Nick Dahlheimer as Chief Operations Officer, with a team of brand managers, branch managers, and sales professionals across four Minnesota facilities. We are still family owned and operated, still giving back to the communities we serve, and still driven by the same work ethic that started in a St. Michael garage.